ACS(BR) Mid-Years 2010 Human Geography 2235/2 LORMS Topic: Food Question: ‘The Green Revolution has introduced more problems to the environment e nvironment and to farmers than it has helped them.’ Discuss this statement. The green revolution has brought about both good and harmful impacts. The introduction of chemicals and irrigation systems has various effects to the environment and to the farmers. Various negative impacts have been made on the environment due to the poor use of chemicals and irrigation systems. Some examples of these are effects such as Salinisation and Eutrophication. Salinisation refers to the accumulation of salts in the upper layers of soil. When excess water from the poor use of irrigation systems is absorbed in to the ground to form ground water, some mineral salts in the found in the lower layers of the soil get dissolved and rise up towards the upper layers. This may make the land more unsuitable for the growth of plants. Also, the excessive use of chemicals and fertilizers through the green revolution may bring about Eutrophication, which refers to the growing of growth of algae in rivers due to contamination of rivers. This leads to the loss of lives of aquatic plants. For example, algae grew in Clear Lake of California, resulting in the death of 80% of its marine life. However, there are also positive impacts such as the High Yield Varieties (HYVs) such as rice crop becoming more resistant to pests, reducing the use of pesticides. Mechanization and cost of HYVs, machines, chemicals, etc. brought about by the green revolution led to negative impacts for farmers. The green revolution resulted in the use of machines such as harvesters and irrigation systems in order to increase work efficiency and productivity. However, this resulted in unemployment of workers as mechanization reduces the manual labour required for agriculture and only educated workers are able to handle these machines. As such, many of the farmers would have to go through the difficulty of learning new skills or finding new jobs. Also, the cost and knowledge required for these HYVs, machine, chemicals and more is very high; hence only very wealthy and educated farmers can afford such methods recommended by the Green Revolution. In the long run, the gap between the poor and rich farmers widens. For example, However, the Green Revolution also brought about various benefits to the farmers, such as better quality of food produced, more resistant crops and greater output of food. With the Green Revolution, crops such as rice and wheat have become of better quality in terms of taste, the nutrients it provides, and the time taken to grow these crops. For example, the IR58, ‘Wonder Rice’, takes about half the growing time as compared to normal crops. Also, these new varieties of crop tend to be more resistant to pests, diseases and climate changes, which allows farmers to spend less on pesticides and these crop stand a better chance to survive diseases and droughts, becoming a more stable source of food, and also a source of income if sold to the market. Furthermore, a greater yield of crops is being produced, allowing countries to alleviate malnourishment and hunger, and may even allow these crops to become a
form of export to other countries to generate revenue. For example, India has greatly benefited from the Green Revolution as not only did it solve the undernourishment problem within its population, but also began to export crops to other countries, sprouting economic growth for the country. In conclusion, the Green Revolution brings about both positive and negative impacts to the environment and the farmers. However, the positive impacts can outweigh the negative impacts if these countries are prepared to use strategies recommended by the Green Revolution, such as having an educated workforce and having constant regulation on the use of chemicals and irrigation systems to ensure that it does not harm the environment. Also, the governments should subsidies these expensive methods to ensure that majority of the farmers within the country can afford these methods to prevent the gap between the rich and poor farmers from widening.
